I have a question mainly relating to how records were kept in workhouses.
It concerns to a branch of my family, my great grandfather's brother. His mother (ggGM) was widowed young and left with 3 children, and clearly became quite destitute. I've found a later second marriage, a census with a blended family, but also start to see multiple workhouse admissions.
My great grandfather seems to have got himself sorted - he left home and married quite early, worked and had a solid if humble home life, ultimately raising 10 children to adulthood in the late 19th/early 20th century East End of London.
However, for his brother things seemed to have been not so good. I've found him on a census living with his step/half siblings but no parents, also further workhouse admissions and discharges. His mother disappears, then reappears, his step father finally dies in a workhouse "insane". It's very sad.
What has really thrown me is that he appears on the 1911 census with a 6 year old boy and 1 year old girl of his own, an older "adopted orphan" and his reappeared mother. He declares he's widowed after being married 9 years, but I can find no marriage anywhere that could be his, and what's more no birth certificates for either of his children. I've found the birth of the adopted orphan (unusual name), and assume her mother was his "wife" as there are shared names. She was married to the child's father at the time.
I can only ask advice in the most general terms, much as I'd love help to unravel this, because what appear to be direct desendents of the 6 year old boy have online trees - it had grabbed my interest before because they all have my grandfather as their ancestor (they both had the same name) which I understand now I can see there's no apparent birth certificate for their one, and I don't want to cause unintentional upset.
The key questions are - how common is it for people to disappear and reappear like this, and more particularly, to have no birth certificates? I hope I'm not missing anything - I've done national searches and can't find these children anywhere, only on the census and in and out of the workhouse.
And did workhouse admissions effect things? Were births less likely to be recorded?
One other possibility is, even though they disappear and reappear in the same places, they might be related to the Irish travelling community. There's Irish names/neighbours/marriages involved, and a vague family history of being connected to travellers somehow - DNA analysis has not shown Roma, but plenty of Irish/Celtic.
Is this also a possibility - does anyone know if travellers didn't always register births or marriages at this time? I know there were plenty of Irish in the East End, were there communities of travellers as well?
Again, sorry for the lack of specifics, I just want to be cautious of any unintentional upset, and any general guidance would be gratefully received.
